ART. II.-THE POLITICAL CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE GREEK RACE.

EVERY indication that reaches us tends to corroborate the belief that the condition of the Turkish empire, and more particularly of that portion of it which lies in Europe, has not reached an equilibrium. No part of the inhabited globe offers to man a more fertile soil or a more genial climate; and for no territory of equal extent has the contest been more animated. Yet no stability has been attained. Each successive impulse has only prepared for a new oscillation. Nor does the present aspect of the Eastern problem offer any reason to expect that the latest conquest by the Turks will be more permanent than the previous conquests of the same regions by semi-Hellenic kings and Roman generals. . In fact the entire condition is one of instability, transition, and preparation. The grand political lesson of our times, it may safely be affirmed, is the futility of the attempt to bind together, by merely artificial and governmental bonds, elements that are dissimilar and discordant from their very origin. The cohesion between provinces united by the apparently fortuitous intermarriage of rulers in bygone generations, is at best of a very slight nature; it dissolves in an instant when it comes into active interference with the simultaneous and mutual attraction of the fragments of a great nation seeking to reunite. Notwithstanding every hinderance arising from arbitrary and unnatural association, Europe now bids fair to undergo a complete remodeling, such as shall restore great nationalities to their proper proportions, and afford to each an opportunity as nearly equal as may be to develop its own peculiar character and capacities.

In European Turkey the great majority of the population consists of adherents of the Christian faith. The Mohammedans, in spite of the advantages they have for the last four centuries enjoyed as the dominant race, and notwithstanding the system of proselytism to their creed which they have encouraged, still continue to be in the minority. In past centuries a few of the higher ecclesiastics and of the more important laymen of the cities may have been induced to renounce their

*

religion, and, as a consequence, their national attachments; but the cases of apostasy were limited very much to the vicinity of the chief cities and towns. The people of the agricultural districts remained unswerving in their devotion to the faith and traditions of their forefathers. Of this Christian population, comprising about twelve millions out of the sixteen million souls in European Turkey, the Greek element is by far the most important, whether we view it in respect to numbers, intelligence, or activity. It is evident, therefore, that no solution that leaves it out of the question can be permanent in its results. With population, growing intellectual strength, and energetic self-reliance in their favor, the Greeks must, in that entire alteration of the mutual relations of the races which every careful political observer must be convinced is imminent, obtain, if not the exclusive, at least a preponderating influence. Whether the Greeks are entitled to claim a pure Hellenic descent or not is a question which, however interesting it may be to those who would gladly share in the credit of Marathonian victories, will, we imagine, have little to do in settling sober matters of political supremacy. If the Greeks can only show that they are so bound together by the ties of common sympathies and sentiments as to constitute a harmonious people, neither Turks nor Franks need distress themselves even should it be true that for every drop of pure Hellenic blood that courses through their veins there are two drops of the baser Albanian or Sclavonic. It is sufficient that the Greek race as we find it. is homogeneous, endowed with high capacities and qualifications for the accomplishment of the historic task which the providence of God seems destining it to undertake. And this we deem an incontestible fact. For quickness of apprehension and readiness of execution, for the power of subtle investigation in the domain of thought, and for fertility of imagination, we regard the Greek mind as unsurpassed. Of the energy of the Greeks we need no better proof than that afforded by the enterprise displayed in commercial pursuits, not only within the few years that have elapsed since the paths of trade have been cleared of obstructions, but from the very moment when their country was beginning to recover from the paralyzing effect of

* Greece under Othoman and Venetian Domination. By George Finlay, LL.D. Pp. 182, etc. Edinburgh and London. 1856.

its subjugation by a horde of semi-barbarous invaders. Despised and oppressed at home, and with little to anticipate in case of success beyond an insecure tenure of their property exposed to the violence of every petty Turkish ruler, Greek merchants ventured to engage in a competition with the most commercial powers. And in the attempt they met with a fair amount of success, notwithstanding Venetian and Genoese jealousy, and the piratical inroads of the knights of Malta, of Catalan corsairs, and others, who troubled themselves little to ascertain whether they were plundering the property of friends or foes. At a later period, when a wider door was opened to legitimate commerce, the islanders of Hydra and Spetzia and the thrifty tradesmen of Smyrna and Scio laid the foundations of commercial establishments at home or abroad, which have now reached colossal dimensions, and. extend their operations over the known world.

It cannot be disguised, however, that very grave doubts have been and are perhaps still entertained by many, regarding the capacity of the Greeks to perform the important part allotted to them. That many of the accusations are unmerited by them as a body, however applicable they may be to individuals, it would be no difficult matter to prove. In the same

manner as the ancient Romans derived their ideas of Greek character only from the low and base type with which they came in contact, and judged of the whole nation from the servile disposition of those who visited Italy in numbers for the purpose of making gain by flattering the conquerors of their native land; so the modern Greeks have suffered the misfortune of having imputed to them all the foibles of the intriguing and covetous inhabitants of the quarter called the Fanar in the city of Constantinople. The heart of the race as it displays itself in the rural districts, whether of Thrace, Macedonia, or Hellas proper, has always been immeasurably superior to the idle population which readily congregates at the center of government, whether that center be Constantinople or Athens. The merchants of the East are, it is true, accustomed to attribute to their Greek confréres a want of strict adherence to truth and honesty in their dealings, and re-echo the old taunt of the Latin satirist, "Græcia mendax." We shall not venture wholly to deny the truth of their assertions; albeit the transactions of

many of these same gentlemen in the East have not been above suspicion of the like faults, and would seem to warrant the belief that they considered the Greeks, even when engaged in the sacred work of securing their independence, a fair subject for spoliation. Let us be charitable, and ascribe the vices which may seem to predominate in Greek character, not to any inherent defect which may not be eradicated by time and superior moral culture, but in great measure to the natural effects of an unremitting oppression by foreign masters, which has extended over twenty centuries of their existence. Even if the caustic assertion of the Frenchman spoken of by Lord Byron were supported by fact, "They are the same rabble that they were in the time of Themistocles," we might hope that the free development of their moral and religious natures would give us not a few who like Socrates and Plato, or like Chrysostom and Athanasius, might become an honor to their race. An acknowledgement of the failings of the Greeks, to be fair, must, however, be accompanied with a corresponding notice of their striking excellences, such as their sagacity, their thrift, their indomitable energy and courage, which place them in the very front rank of the various races of the Turkish empire.

A revolution such as that which freed a portion of the Greek race from the dominion of the Sultan could not fail in many ways to retard the progress which was everywhere beginning to manifest itself. It was this view of the matter that discouraged the aged Coray, whose patriotic mind, ardently as it burned to behold the liberation of his country, could not forget the immense cost at which it was likely to be purchased. The announcement of the outbreak of the war was mournful news to the philosopher and philanthropist, who had spent a long life as a voluntary exile in Western Europe, that he might more successfully occupy himself in the publication of works calculated to elevate his poor ignorant countrymen. Of the aspiring men who originated the revolution Coray shortly after wrote: "They scarce deserve forgiveness. For, with the blood of many myriads of men, with the disgrace of unnumbered women, with the conversion to Islam of multitudes of young men and maidens, with the destruction of whole cities, they have purchased freedom, (or rather a semblance of freedom,) which after twenty or, at most, thirty years would have been

surely and absolutely obtained with incomparably fewer evils."*

The voice of history, we are confident, will fail to confirm the opinion of that devoted lover of his race. The day which was chosen by Providence for the enfranchisement of Greece will certainly appear, in the light of subsequent events, to have been most favorable to the accomplishment of the great designs to which it was merely the introduction. Even now we can recognize the impossibility of initiating in any part of Turkey such schemes of extended public instruction as form the crowning glory of independent Greece. And when we look at the growing intelligence of the people, at their well-perfected school system, reaching from the primary school to the university, and at the numbers of educated men filling every liberal profession, we hesitate to say that these advantages were dearly bought even at the cost of such sufferings as those from which Coray drew back in affright.

A

Undeniably the revolution, by the immense destruction of property which it superinduced, inflicted an injury upon the material prosperity of Greece which it has required long years to repair. Yet the elasticity with which a people lately freed from oppression undertakes to retrieve the losses it has incurred, soon obliterates every vestige of their existence. more serious drawback, due rather to the miserably selfish policy of the pretended friends of Grecian independence than to any action of the Greeks themselves, has made itself felt ever since. Had not the allied powers interfered more to regulate than to insure the freedom of the peninsula, an area would have been given to the new state sufficiently extended to furnish full scope for the development of the race under free institutions. The blessings of liberty and education, now enjoyed in their largest extent only by a small part of those who joined in the war, would have been shared alike by the brave defenders of Suli, by the enterprising and refined Sciotes, and by the inhabitants of Crete and Rhodes. But the strength of the new state was sacrificed to the preservation of the balance of power, and French and English united in preferring to jeopard the success of the enterprise for whose sake rivers of blood had flowed, rather * Coray, Preface to his edition of Epictetus, I, 21.